App, language school, marketplace or private lessons?

I write this page and I have something to gain from it: you should know that before you read it. So the test is the same for all four: what you actually get, and what you do not. At the end you will also find the cases where you are better off without me.

An app like Duolingo

Apps are better than their reputation. They keep you going, they cost little or nothing, and for basic vocabulary they are excellent. Anyone who says you learn nothing from them has never used one seriously.

Where they stop is production. An app checks whether you tap the right answer. It does not hear you swallow the double consonant, it does not notice that you avoid the congiuntivo by rebuilding the sentence, and it does not correct the mistake you have been repeating for six months without knowing.

A group course at a language school

Good schools do good work, and a group has things a private lesson does not: fellow students, a fixed structure, a lower price per hour, and the social pressure that gets you out of the house on a dark Tuesday in November.

The two limits are structural, not a matter of quality. Speaking time: in a group of twelve, with a teacher who also has to explain, you get a few minutes a lesson. And the pace, which is the average pace of the group and almost never yours. On top of that, courses start on fixed dates and the offer often stops around B2.

A marketplace like italki or Preply

Plenty of choice, a low barrier to entry, and there really are good teachers: I know, because I work there too. If you want conversation hours at a sharp price, it is a good choice.

The weak point is continuity. You book single hours, often with changing teachers, usually with no programme that carries on. The hour is pleasant and there is no plan.

In one screen

The four routes compared on the things that actually decide the outcome.

Price per hour is the one line where I lose, and it sits last because it matters least when you have a deadline or you are looking for quality.

What I do differently

There are two things you do not get from the other three. Neither is “personal attention”: everybody promises that.

1. I am trained in teaching Italian, not just in Italian

I am a native speaker, but that is not the point: there are sixty million of us. Teaching people who live in Italy and teaching people who study from abroad are two different jobs, and they have two names: L2 and LS. I studied one master for each: the ITALS master at Ca’ Foscari, LS track, and a master on Italian as a second language at Giustino Fortunato.

In practice it means I know why a Dutch speaker trips over the congiuntivo and not over word order, why the double consonant is almost inaudible to a Dutch ear, and in what order to introduce things so that they stick.

Both masters ended in a thesis, and both are on this site. The one at Ca’ Foscari is about intercultural dialogue in a blended course, built on Italian songs and adverts: it is where the culture part of my lessons comes from, and why I do not treat culture as trivia at the end of the chapter. The one at Giustino Fortunato is about the online class, and starts from Krashen’s affective filter: anxiety and embarrassment block learning before any grammatical difficulty does. That is why the first lesson is spent listening to you, not testing you. The two theses are here →

2. I write my own material

Almost every school and every platform works from a commercial coursebook, written for an average student who does not exist. I do not use a coursebook.

We build the material together, lesson after lesson. No two paths are the same, and neither of us has one imposed: not you by a rigid structure, not me by a syllabus decided in September. What you need this week decides what we do next week.

• Over 700 interactive exercises: free, no account, from A1 to B2.
• My own iOS app, an A1–C2 path and a dictionary in seventeen languages.
• Italian classics rewritten by level: with notes and a glossary, so at B1 you already read Pirandello.

If you are going to Puglia in May, I prepare the lesson on Puglia and you prepare it too: that way the time together goes entirely on talking, not on reading a page you could have read alone. A coursebook, by definition, cannot do that.

When you do not need me

If you want a few words for your holiday, get an app. If you want company and a low price per hour, take a group course in your town. If you want conversation hours with no programme, a marketplace costs less than I do. And if you would rather carry on by yourself, the 700 exercises and the app stay there even if you never take a lesson with me.

When I am the right choice

• You are starting from zero and want to begin well, without picking up habits to undo later.
• You are stuck at B1 or B2: you understand a lot, but speaking is not keeping up.
• You want to get past B2, and what is on offer where you live stops there.
• You need it for work: meetings, clients, colleagues, a transfer within the company.
• It is for your child: lessons for children and teenagers, at a pace of their own.
• You have a concrete deadline: a move, a certificate, a client in Milan.
• You work irregular hours and do not fit a fixed timetable.
• You want one teacher who remembers your path.

Who I am

I am Alessio, Italian, and I live in Ede. I have been teaching for more than six years and have worked with over thirty students. I started as a pastime, and then it became my work.

What kept me here is not the grammar: it is that I like talking to people, listening to them and understanding where they come from. That is why in class I speak little and let you speak. Grammar arrives when it is needed, and when it is needed we do it properly; but the time goes on your life and your world, because that is what you will want to talk about in Italian with the people around you.

The full profile, the theses and the record →